This absolutely. This comparison uses standard markers of inflation, which are heavily lobbied categories and mostly either processed foods or animal products - ground beef, milk, eggs, butter, etc. My household shops extensively at Hmart or Lotte because A. we cook food from my ethnic background which those grocers specialize in and B. we eat a lot of fresh produce to do so, which we find is cheapest and highest quality at Hmart or Lotte. Folks shopping for groceries at Hmart probably aren't in need of a pound of butter. They're also probably not looking to prioritize a $2.50 can of green beans, when they're fresh for $1.79/lb. I appreciate the authors of the story including Hmart but they sort of bungled the comparison.

Frustrating also that the closest thing to a veggie in the standard inflation markers is a can of green beans. There's like 5 grams of fiber in that entire list, combined. "Items that most people buy" is a pretty sad picture.

In the last one of these, they presented Harris Teeter as selling butter for almost twice the price of other grocery stores, but they compared a name brand at HT against house brands at the other stores. If you compared HT's house brand against Giant's and Safeway's house brands, HT was not any more expensive.

This was something I was able to fact-check on the stores' websites in less than 10 minutes. I even confirmed it in person the next day by going to my local Harris Teeter and buying butter. So I'm not sure they're interested in fair comparisons.

Came here to say this exact thing! I would never go to Hmart for this specific grocery list—like, never ever. But I love going there for spices, produce, and some other items that I can’t easily find elsewhere. And their prices on these things are very competitive. This article irked me.